Portland Fire & Rescue - Fire Camp 2010 - July 9, 10, & 11, 2010

PF&R's Fire Camp Sparks Interest in Young Women

Portland Fire & Rescue's (PF&R) Fire Camp 2010 drew in young women ages 16 to 19 from Portland all the way down to Bend, Oregon! Close to three dozen female campers participated this weekend in the second annual Fire Camp, part of a new effort to recruit more women to PF&R and firefighting as a career. The young women learned about this opportunity from current firefighters, City of Portland employees, home school organizations, teachers, counselors, schools, the PF&R website, the Women in Trades career fair.

The 3-day training camp was created, taught, and supervised by female professional firefighters from Portland Fire & Rescue, Hillsboro Fire Department, Salem Fire Department, Clackamas County Fire District #1, and Gresham Fire & Emergency Services with the goals of instilling confidence, building leadership and team skills in young women, and providing an opportunity to try firefighting through hands-on training.

The camp teaches young women specific firefighting skills, including how to lower oneself from upper-story windows using a rope, how to take a hose, and how to climb an aerial ladder on a fire engine. The annual event, free to participants, will be held again in July 2011. Further information will be posted on PF&R's website at http://www.portlandonline.com/fire/firecamp.

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Portland
• Fire
• Rescue
• Female
• firefighters
• Camp
• for
• Young
• Women

[TheDurationPlusFive]

Good luck, girls. I've been told firefighting is one of the last bastions for the male chauvinists in the workplace, and female firefighters are pranked, sexually harassed and generally treated like shit...

[FIREFIGHTERGIRL1111]

all i can say firefighting rules!!!

[tollhouseballer]

@deekamikaze Well there you go. And thats how those programs should be ran. Its awsome that their showing kids what its like to work in the fire service. How mentally and physically tuff it is and ultimately how stressful the job is. But on the other hand how its the BEST job there is. But from what ive seen these kids come to my station and and boss others around telling others how to throw a ladder when they cant even do it themselves... and then have an excuse why they couldnt do it.

[deekamikaze]

@tollhouseballer im sorry to hear that. we do what were told. no excuses. we all love pulling hose and doing simulations. they told us first day that were not better than anyone. and i quote. "you guys are below whale shit"

[tollhouseballer]

@deekamikaze Thats cool. But in my opinion explorer programs are shit. Ive had explorer programs come to our stations we put them threw our exercises like pulling hose throwing ladders, doing a rescue simulation, cus were the only special rescue in our county. And all the kids just wine and complain and have every excuse to not do it... yet they think their better then everyone else

[deekamikaze]

@tollhouseballer they are trying to get them interested in the fire career. im a fire explorer. and we do the physical training FF's do. we do the P.A.T. every week. plus more exercises

[tollhouseballer]

haha... There pulling empty 3 in supply line with a roller and breathing hard. running up stair wells with a high rise pack without their coat. Not even climbing the full length of the aerial ladder. This is a joke. Not saying that women cant be fire fighters cus ive worked with alot of women in my career in the fire service but these girls are doing things that are drastically dumbed down to where any body with two legs will be able to do.

[kansasjake1223]

@kansasjake1223 and no just trying to make a point things that are being said about chick firefighters that arent true should be kept to themselves, i was trying to send it to the " thewomanoamission" dude , sorry again ha

[kansasjake1223]

@konatown5 this computer is freaking gay im done lol

[konatown5]

@kansasjake1223 still at it? how hard is it to reply to a comment? you are really having a lot much trouble with this. BTW why u mad?